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January 17, 2012

Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies | Heart Sugar Cookies | Recipe

As I've mentioned before, when we were younger, sugar cookies were a staple for every holiday... which means just six weeks after the Holidays we were ready to make more sugar cookies.

Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies are great for a novice sugar cookie decorator. Simple shapes (hearts) in solid colors. Wah-lah, you have a festive looking Valentine's Day treat. I made a couple of Love Birds, too... just couldn't resist. You may remember them from the Baby Bird Baby Shower I hosted for my sister.

Unlike chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies are not cookies you have around the house just to nibble on. They are works of art... making them the perfect small gift to your Valentines - friends, co-workers, and neighbors. You'll find creative packaging ideas for your cookies in this post : Valentine's Day Cookie Packaging Ideas

In your Kitchen Aid fitted with the paddle attachement, whip together butter and powdered sugar. Add Flour, vanilla, cream of tarter, soda, and egg. On slow, stir together ingredients just until combined. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and wrap it with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Unwrap the dough and put it on a floured board. Be sure to flour the rolling pin, as well. Roll out dough until 1/4 inch thick.

Cut shapes. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 6-8 minutes at 350 degrees just until the edges begin to turn brown - baking time will depend on size and thickness of the cookie.

Royal Icing

3 egg whites
4 cups of powdered sugar

In the Kitchen Aid fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until almost frothy. Add in the powdered sugar and whisk on slow until smooth. You may need to add more or less powdered sugar or water to achieve desired thickness. For sugar cookies, you want the icing to be thin enough that it will fall back on itself and smooth itself out, but not too thin so it will run off of the cookie.

Good colors are so important to making professional looking sugar cookies. Here are my tips for a great pink :

Pink Icing : I start with a small amount of the royal icing, I add 1 small drop of red food coloring. Add a 1/2 drop of orange and green food coloring. This will give you a deep pink color. Divide the rest of the white icing in to two or three bowls (depending on how many shades you want). Add small amounts of the pink base to each white bowl in varying amounts.

13 comments:

this is my all time favorite sugar cookie recipe. not just saying that. ive blogged about it several times. I LOVE what the powdered sugar does for the dough. btw, your cookies are beautiful. i like the light pink hearts best

I just discovered your blog and LOVE all your ideas and work! I'm hoping to try my hand at the bird sugar cookies for my baby boy's upcoming baptism but have two questions for you: First, where did you find the bird cookie cutter (so cute!)? Second, how can I achieve the beautiful aqua color you used to decorate the birds? What kind of food coloring do you use? Lastly (okay, I completely misrepresented how many questions I had), any tips on achieving a pretty gray color for the beak/ legs?

Kristin - Thanks! Here is a post I wrote about mixing icing colors. http://jennysteffens.blogspot.com/2011/10/heirloom-pumpkin-sugar-cookies-tips-for.html The bird cookie cutter I got at a gift shop years ago in Kansas City... It was sort of a random find. Sorry, not much help there!

We made these cookies and followed all the directions, and we had to leave the cookies in the fridge for a day because they just wouldent harden. This morning I checked them and they were very soft. I tried rolling them and they just stuck to the counter, even though I put in lots of flour. I had to make them into small balls, but they were very hard to work with because they were so sticky. What did I do wrong?

I also just attempted this recipe at my boyfriends house as I did not have my usual recipe for sugar cookies and the dough was far too soft and sticky even after adding extra flour and sugar and refrigeration